Published 4:00 am, Monday, May 3, 1999

At 16, Ryan McCulloch is learning to handle fame in hometown Vacaville -- and finding room for heaps of awards for his remarkable clay animation films, which are earning raves at film festivals all over the United States.

Two McCulloch animations will be shown Thursday at the San Francisco International Film Festival's "Youth or Consequences" program showcasing the work of young filmmakers. Showtime is 1 p.m. at the Kabuki, and a panel discussion with the young artists follows.

McCulloch started his touching, funny stop-action clay animation "Without You" and "Put to Sleep" when he was 14. HBO was so impressed with the Will C. Wood High School sophomore's artistry that they bought "Without You" and will run it twice a month for the next year. The cable giant even commissioned McCulloch to make another short.

"I'm actually kind of shy," he said recently after winning top honors at the University of California at Davis International Film Festival. "People sometimes think that just because I can be quiet, I'm not friendly or something. Sometimes I'm actually boisterous."

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McCulloch is rarely quiet on the subject of filmmaking, and winning the Silver Spire award at San Francisco's film festival has added to his list of things to talk about. He has six highly praised shorts to his credit and has been hired to make animated TV spots for local businesses. That puts a real squeeze on his time because he earns straight A's in school and plays on the varsity tennis team.

"I like being busy, but it helps to know exactly what I want to do with my life, and that is make films," the 6-foot-1 animator said.

McCulloch's studio is in his garage, which he shares with the family's Dodge Caravan. "But most of the time I work on the kitchen table. My mom, Kim, is pretty understanding, but having a mess of clay makes it hard for her, especially around dinnertime."

In many ways, McCulloch's career is a family affair. He calls his house Studio 1018, and sister, Mol ly, 13, supplied the doll house he used as a set in "Without You," a poignant film about a dog whose master has gone away. It's set to Frank Sinatra's rendition of Hoagy Carmichael's "I Get Along Without You Very Well," and it packs amazing emotional power into three minutes.

His second short, "Put to Sleep," looks at animals in a city pound waiting to be adopted (most aren't), and it was used as a public service announcement on television. His biggest film ran about $100.

His father, Bill, a former San Francisco drummer who worked for many years with cabaret singer Sharon McKnight, helps with supplies, lighting and some of the business end of running an animation studio.

"Sometimes he comes up with suggestions, too," McCulloch said. "Like maybe I should put a few shadows here or there."

Influenced by Britain's Nick Park, of Wallace and Gromit fame, McCulloch uses a lot of dog characters, and the family's wirehaired fox terrier Scamper is never out of sight. "You can get a lot of expressions out of dogs," he said.

That McCulloch seems to be Vacaville's biggest celebrity is "no big deal," he said.

But a very big deal is that he survived a brain tumor and surgery last year and continued to work as an artist.

"It was very scary," he said of the medical ordeal that lasted several months. "I learned to be an optimistic person, and that helped because there are a ton of films I plan to make."

WENDERS DOCUMENTS

The Buena Vista Social Club is responsible for some of the most seductive sounds of the current Latin pop boom.

Buff young bucks in leather pants they're not: The group is mostly made up of senior citizens from Havana, lifelong musicians who were all but unknown outside Cuba until recently. One member is 90.

Filmmaker Wim Wenders has hired guitarist and world-music scholar Ry Cooder to compose soundtracks for his films, including "Paris, Texas" and "The End of Violence."

Now Cooder, organizer and collaborator on the Buena Vista Social Club sessions, gets in front of Wenders' cameras for the first time. The documentary that bears the group's name is the festival's closing-night showcase (7 p.m. Thursday at the Castro Theatre).

Named for a long-lost Havana nightclub, the Social Club has sold a million records worldwide since the release of the group's self-titled, Grammy-winning debut in 1997.

For his documentary, Wenders filmed the sessions for a forthcoming second album, featuring the songs of vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer, whom Cooder calls "the Cuban Nat King Cole." Highlights from the group's July 1998 concerts in Amsterdam are included.